This Post...

This was going to be about the amazing weekend we just came away from, and about cute things Isaac and Bella have said recently, and maybe a little kvetching about Cleveland... but instead it's an update to this post from last year.

I haven't written much about Grant in the intervening months - he had been going to school for much of the year, in Bella's class. His family did their best to make it an incredible year for him: He went to the Olympics, to Disneyworld, and he got to meet a lot of his sports heroes as well. And then he had a whole lot of medical treatments.

As typically happens, the first round of chemo shrank the tumor and gave Grant some of his life back. The drugs weakened his body so he was put on massive steroids... He bulked up to twice his weight, but it gave him the ability to be with his friends and family. But a couple of months ago, the tumor started growing again: A month ago, Grant decided not to go back to school. And on Sunday at 3pm, he died.

His classmates made him a video a couple of weeks ago: In it, Bella read a poem with her friend Miles. On Monday morning, the whole school found out about Grant's passing, and social workers were all over the place. Bella's class watched their video to him to remember... and in typical 7 year old style, they were giggling at and with their friends... The gravity of this can't really sink in for most of them: Bella was more of an acquaintance than close friend (Grant was a very Boy-boy, and loved sports - I suspect he and Isaac would have been a better match), and by the end of Monday, she was tired of all of the fuss and just wanted to play.

(Update: I should clarify - Bella was and is very sad about this - but I just wanted to show that for a first grader, life moves on pretty quickly... I suspect we'll have echoes of sadness for quite a while to come. While Bella declared herself "tired" of talking about it by last night, she also was on a hair trigger with Isaac, and stayed up until 10 talking... so we all process in our own ways)

It's hard as a dad to even imagine what Grant's parents and family went through: On Sunday night, I spent a long time just staring at Isaac and Bella as they slept. I looked at pictures of Grant's progression, and read his parents brave updates on Caringbridge, and was just overwhelmed with sadness. I don't know how someone could ever get over something that sad... but I know people do.

Anyway, I just wanted to have this post out there... and I'll get around to telling you about the amazing weekend we had before we found out, and about the funny things the kids said, and yes, I'll even tell you about Cleveland some more. But not right this minute.